GMAT Strategy

Background: I am 49, earned a BS in Information Systems in the 80s, worked in the field 15 years then became stay-at-home mom in 98. Trying to go back to work with that background isn't possible so I have decided to get my MS. I have spent the last year taking the background business classes I need; so, it has been a long time since my brain really functioned but I have been exercising it.

I have spent the last 3 weeks going over MGMAT quant books and OG's Quantitative Review since I haven't actually done high school math in over 25 years. I averaged about 75% on the problems.

I just took my first GMATprep practice test and scored a 650. That is a great score for me since the school I will be attending only requires a 450 and their average is just 490 (local college is best for a wife/mom/grandmother with local responsibilities).

My concern is how many I missed. I missed 14 of 37 on the quant and 10 of 41 on the verbal. How in the heck does that add up to an overall of 650? I do still have 6 weeks before the actual test so I am sure I will improve. I just kind off lost confidence in the practice tests as an estimate of how I will do because of this.

My individual scores were 40 quant and 39 verbal.

Firstly it is pretty inspiring to see your patience/diligence to take the GMAT. There are many half your age who would perhaps not have the same stick-to-it-iveness.

The number of questions right or wrong are inputs to your GMAT raw score (Q40 and V39) which in turn determine your scaled scores. I have tried answering some of it here:
https://www.crackverbal.com/blog/gmat-sc ... ied-partly


Hope this helps,

Arun

sjrbritt -

The short answer to your question is that the GMATPrep is pretty accurate...supposed to be close to what you would get on test day.

As to missing so many questions and still scoring well, that is what happens with the GMAT - it is adaptive so the questions continue to adapt to you. The test keeps you within a certain range. My theory is that the computer does not give you a question that you have less than a 40% chance of getting right or a 40% chance of getting wrong. The test wants to challenge you, but do so in a way that is fair. So you can imagine that most people miss somewhere near 1/2 of all the questions they attempt! People that score well usually still end up not missing many questions.

So theGMATPrep practice test is the best estimate of how you will do. By the way, you can take the same one again as well as taking the other test a couple of times as well. See how you do with another try!

But have faith seems like you are on track.

How accurate is the GMATPREP when you take the exam in a span of two years? the last time i took practice exams was in Oct 2010 and i cant remember the answers.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:sjrbritt -

The short answer to your question is that the GMATPrep is pretty accurate...supposed to be close to what you would get on test day.

As to missing so many questions and still scoring well, that is what happens with the GMAT - it is adaptive so the questions continue to adapt to you. The test keeps you within a certain range. My theory is that the computer does not give you a question that you have less than a 40% chance of getting right or a 40% chance of getting wrong. The test wants to challenge you, but do so in a way that is fair. So you can imagine that most people miss somewhere near 1/2 of all the questions they attempt! People that score well usually still end up not missing many questions.

So theGMATPrep practice test is the best estimate of how you will do. By the way, you can take the same one again as well as taking the other test a couple of times as well. See how you do with another try!

But have faith seems like you are on track.

How accurate is the GMATPREP when you take the exam in a span of two years? the last time i took practice exams was in Oct 2010 and i cant remember the answers.

First of all, you generally get mostly new questions when you take the test for a second time - so if you did not take each of the two GMATPrep tests multiple times then you should get a great majority of new questions. As to the questions that are repeated the fact that it has been five months will help the accuracy of the scores.

However, even though you do not remember the answers, you may still remember something about the questions so you will lose some of those moments when you see a question and don't know what to do AT ALL. In that instance your scores may be a little higher than they would be if you had never taken the test. In the end I would say that as long as you did not take each test multiple times when you were studying before, the accuracy should be pretty good - within that normal range of about 30 points above or below.

It is definitely worth doing!